Aleph and the final game: Lionel Messi’s redemption meets Spain’s tiki-taka in a World Cup final for the ages | Football News

In the famous Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges’ short story “El Aleph”, the eponymous character is a mystical point in space that contains all other points in the universe, allowing anyone who looks at it to see every place on Earth from every angle simultaneously without distortion.According to the Latin American literary giant who died on June 14 of 1986 — eight days before Maradona’s two imaginary goals against England in the World Cup in Mexico that Argentina would go on to win — one man was the victim and the course of his destiny.This Sunday, Lionel Messi — the Aleph of the Argentine football atmosphere — will search for the infinite at the end in the very place of New Jersey where, alone and defeated a decade ago, he decided to quit the game. The course of his fate has brought him to this day and it brings us because of his rhapsodical and redemptive face.However, Spain are there, looking for their own moment of truth in this dream place and will put Messi’s journey in two parallels in this World Cup final. On the one hand, here is a country that has put a smooth arrow in the process of making Messi complete; on the other hand there is a challenger today who is more eager to cook the gift of the performer himself in a fun immersion in the imagination in which we can see ourselves.If it continues to be a sore point of narrative ambiguity, it can also be a central driving force in competition because it always leads us to a new possibility.It is a Spanish-speaking finale but it is more than a contest, full of a banquet of emotional turmoil and beauty while allowing for many subplots and as a stirring meeting of ideas that put each other.Never in World Cup history have the reigning Copa América winners come to face the European champions in a final. The ‘Finalissima’ between the two kings of the continent was canceled in March due to the Gulf war. But it’s happening now on the biggest stage and with the biggest stakes.This competition also opens up many possibilities.The pass-heavy tiki-taka of Spain with all its fluidity and fantasy that consumed the ambition of France in the semifinal, will meet its match with the counter-pressing and never-say-die attitude of La Scaloneta. It also holds attention to another convenient narrative that examines their past and present. Spain’s collectivism – “Simply being ourselves as a team,” as De la Fuente put it – is now up against Argentina’s play-for-Messi joie de vivre.Spain is unstoppable remaining unbeaten in normal or extra time for 37 games. Argentina, themselves on an unbeaten run of 14 matches, gave them the final test. It remains to be seen how Messi and his teammates will fare against Marc Cucurella, Fabian Ruiz and Rodri in a complex odyssey across the landscape of the aspirations of the two teams.Football is often played with a level of mysticism that also makes it fold in on itself. Back in 2017 when Lionel Scaloni was in the coaching academy of the Spanish football association, he found in one Luis de la Fuente a teacher where he was happy to learn the craft.The two coaches, who stood on the touchline and guided their teams to immortality, may be tempted now to reflect on their shared past.